


Who we will be when it's all come undone

by eonism



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-10
Updated: 2012-04-10
Packaged: 2017-11-03 09:23:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/379841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eonism/pseuds/eonism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leading up to the events of 6x19. This is all new. This is all Castiel, made up of borrowed skin and left starving by all the things they can’t talk about, and Dean can’t shake the feeling this is the last he’s going to know any of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who we will be when it's all come undone

Dean’s been drinking cheap whiskey for the last hour, sitting on the hood of the Impala in Bobby’s garage and watching it get dark outside. Sam and Bobby are both inside and there’s food and decent beer on the kitchen table, but he’s not thinking about that. All they’ve done since Grants Pass is share whispers when Dean’s asleep, trading looks across diner tables whenever he mentions calling Cas to check up on the Crowley hunt and getting no reply. Because Cas is busy, he keeps informing them, commanding an army in Heaven. He doesn’t have time to pick up the phone whenever Dean has a question or a stubbed toe or a runny nose. 

Sam and Bobby just look at each other like they know something he doesn’t, asking him “Are you sure?” or “Is that like Cas?” or “Would Cas just avoid you like that?” Then Sam gets that stupid pained look on his face that he does whenever he knows Dean can tell he’s lying. And Sam hasn’t lied to him since he got back from The Pit proper, soul and all, and Dean hates it. 

So he tells them “He’s not avoiding me,” or “What do I look like, his wife?” or “Mind your own damn business,” and pushes his plate away and doesn’t say anything else to either of them until they get back to Bobby’s. Never mind that Cas hasn’t been answering, and there hasn’t been so much as a feather-drop to let him know Cas is still listening. And maybe that makes him a little nervous, locked in the house with two fucking Judases who seem so quick to put Cas in the same boat as every other two-faced demon they hunt.

Bobby and Sam, they don’t seem to get why that’s a problem. Cas is their friend, like family in some ways, but they don’t get it. They can’t. It would help if Dean told them he’d been sleeping with Cas for the last thousand miles, but that’s none of their business to begin with. Now he’s sitting on the hood of the car, with a fifth of whiskey in him already and no end of the bottle in sight. He sighs and shifts in his perch, and wipes the alcohol burn from his mouth with the back of his hand. Shakes his head and closes his eyes, and prays even though he knows better.

“C’mon, Cas,” he says to no one, except for the stars blinking at him through the steel wool of the cloud cover. “I need you. You picked a real shitty time to stop answering the Jesus Hotline.”

When Dean receives no answer, he sighs again and takes another drink.

“I haven’t stopped answering, Dean.”

Cas seems to speak before he appears, punctuated by the sudden swell of air across the ground and the sound of beating wings. He’s five feet from the car when Dean looks over at him, the whole of him tired, rumpled, wind-swept. The dried blood from their last encounter is gone, wiped clean from the angel’s neck and face, even if that same haunted look lingers behind.

“And the son of God doesn’t have a dedicated line.”

Normally Dean would laugh at that. Tonight he slides off the car, puts his bottle down, tries to straighten himself up for this. It’s hard when Cas is so close, making all the lights in the scrap yard hum, ready to burst. It’s even harder to resist the need he feels to put his hands on Cas, inside his clothes and all over his slender borrowed chest and the flat of Jimmy’s hips, under the peak of his pelvis where Dean’s fingers fit so well. Cas takes long steps to close the space between them and the air is hot and crackling, like in Grants Pass when Cas went super nova in Eve’s diner of monsters.

He’s more powerful than Dean remembers him ever being, and that’s a little scary. Like burning Lenore alive was a little scary, but they never got the chance to talk about it. They don’t get the chance to talk about it now either, because Cas is in Dean’s space, a hand on his neck, the other at his wrist and Cas is kissing him. Softly first and then firmer in a gentle bite at Dean’s bottom lip, like he’s signing his name into the skin. It’s unfair how well that little trick works, because Dean’s mouth opens and his dick starts to get hard from the closeness of Cas’s body, the smell of it, like wind and lightning and sweat. It startles him how much he likes the way the static makes the air pop around them, but Cas doesn’t need to know that. 

“I wanted to come sooner.” Cas leans away, just enough for them to breathe. “What Eve said about Crowley caused a lot of questions, upstairs. There were some matters I had to attend to.”

“Yeah, I know,” Dean exhales. “Commanding the armies of Heaven and all.”

“I realize our last encounter was a bit – tense. Don’t think I was ignoring you.”

“Cas, it’s fine, I get it.” This must be how Dear John letters start out. Dean’s never stuck around long enough to receive one, if only because Lisa didn’t have a mailing address to send it to. The idea of Cas writing one now should make him laugh, but he doesn’t have the energy left. “You’re busy. I don’t need the speech.”

Cas isn’t in the mood to give the speech either, because with a nod he’s leaning in to kiss Dean again, gently, all lips. Chaste and dry, despite the hand that travels down Dean’s neck to palm over his heart, fingers gripping at the fabric of his collar. Dean’s dick responds in earnest and it’s easy to slide his hands inside Cas’s coat, under his jacket and around to his back, holding him still in order to lick his mouth open. It’s all too easy to give into and Cas goes all loose, pliant to Dean’s mouth and his hands. After a moment, Dean pulls away.

“Cas,” he breathes, “wait up. We need to talk.”

“I wasn’t aware this was considered talking,” Cas deadpans, and at that Dean shakes his head.

“Look, we’re all thrilled you’ve mastered sarcasm, but I’m serious.”

Cas’s face changes, jaw clicks shut. He shrugs under his jacket and moves to away to take up Dean’s post at the Impala. Dean wipes his mouth off, tries to ignore the erection threatening to betray him.

“I don’t know anything about Crowley,” Cas says before Dean has a chance to ask. “How he escaped my notice is beyond me, but somehow he managed it.”

“Yeah, but, as powerful as you are, Cas?” Dean asks. “I mean, we all make mistakes, but lately, you’re – well, going nuclear on monsters and killing girls with just a touch. You’re working some serious mojo here.”

“And what’re you implying Dean?”

“I’m just asking a question.”

“I don’t know how Crowley survived. He must be more powerful than we first estimated. Maybe it’s a spell, or some sort of ward that’s blocking me.” Cas sighs, looks at the dirt. “It’s more frustrating for me than you know.”

“And your powers?” Dean presses, crowding Cas in, trying to capture his gaze. “What, are they putting steroids in the water up there nowadays?”

“I’m a general, Dean. In a war,” Cas says flatly. “With all the weapons of Heaven at my disposal.”

“Is that all?”

“Do you not trust me, Dean?” Cas asks.

Dean takes a breath, squares up. “Cas.”

“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done in the hope of keeping order down here. For you, Dean. This war, these weapons? It’s all to stop Raphael from letting Michael and Lucifer out of the cage and killing all of you.” 

Cas leans in. Dean moves away.

“So do you trust me or not?”

“Of course.” Dean swallows, feels the words stick. “But even you got to see how shitty this looks for you. Now Bobby and Sam think you’re in it with Crowley, and I don’t know what’s up or down anymore.”

Cas flinches, catches himself, resettles. “And do you believe them?

“No,” Dean says. “No, you know that.”

Cas doesn’t respond. Dean sighs, leans against the car beside him. 

“Look, fuck it. Forget I said anything. Your word is good enough for me. ”

“But it’s not for Sam,” Cas says. “Or for Bobby.”

“You know what? Fuck them,” Dean spits out. “I mean it.”

Cas cants his head, furrows his brow that big sad way that he does that makes Dean feel like he’s supposed to fix something. “No, you don’t.”

“I mean it, Cas,” Dean insists. “Maybe I’m not that smart, but I know enough to bet on the winning horse when I see it. Sam and Bobby, they’ll get over it.”

“Or they won’t, Dean.”

“That’s their problem.”

“I don’t see it that way.”

“Well, tough shit. They don’t have to like it.” Whatever this is, but Dean doesn’t say that part.

“You would really jeopardize your family just to keep doing this?” Cas asks in earnest. “What we’re doing here, Dean, it makes things complicated enough. I can’t ask you for anything more.”

The way Cas says it makes Dean’s chest feel tight. “Cas, what’re we really talking about here?”

Cas looks away. “I should go.”

“Whoa, no, you’re not going anywhere.” Dean puts a hand on Cas’s shoulder, to keep him in place or to follow after, wherever he blinks away to. “Talk to me, Cas.”

“I can’t, Dean.”

“Like hell you can’t,” Dean all but barks. “You’re all about telling me what I ought to know, but you can’t be bothered to stick around when I ask you a question?”

Cas’s face shifts, all steel. “What would you have me say?”

“How about the truth?”

The air feels charged by static, hissing and crackling at the way Cas moves close. “That we’ve been carrying on this charade because you enjoy fucking me and I enjoy letting you? Is that what you want to hear?”

The words roll off Cas’s tongue so easily that it brings Dean up short. “You really think that’s what this has been about?”

“You haven’t given me any reason to think otherwise,” is all Cas has to say. 

Shaking his head, Dean turns away. He reaches for his forgotten bottle sitting at the wheel well to take a long drink, put some space between them. “You know, for an angel, you can be really fucking dense sometimes.”

“Dean.” After a pause, Cas sighs, puts his hands in his coat pockets. “Dean.”

“What?”

“I shouldn’t have.” Licks his lips, tries to find the words. “I didn’t mean that.”

“It’s fine, I get it. You don’t have to explain anything.”

“I want to be here, with you. You know this.”

“Then what are we doing?” Dean asks, turns to face him. “I mean, every time we see each other, we’re at each other’s throats. You want your secrets? Fine, you can have them. I can live with that. But, Christ, Cas, what do you want from me here?”

Cas swallows, looks away. “What I want, I can’t have, Dean. That’s why I can’t ask you.”

“Bullshit.” Dean shakes his head again. “You have to ask me before you get to decide that, Cas. This is basic here.”

Cas says nothing. Eventually he steps forward, closes the gap between them. Takes the bottle from Dean with one hand, closes around his wrist with the other. 

“Let’s start with where we left off before,” he says softly, appealingly, “and go upstairs. Alright?”

After a moment, Dean nods.

The hand Cas lays on Dean’s chest feels hot and in a rush the garage and scrap yard disappear. They’re replaced by the unused spare room, with the dusty bookshelves and the busted lock where Dean had set down his duffel when they arrived. Cas takes the bottle and sits it on the empty dresser across the room, slips out of his coat and jacket, folds them up and puts them away. The room still feels loose and unsteady around Dean and he sits down on the bed, takes a deep breath. This feels like a loss, something tight and sick in his chest the way he feels at funerals, when there’s no air and his feet are rooted to the spot. He tells himself this isn’t a loss, this isn’t an end but the way Cas is looking at him, it makes it hard. Like he’s tired and sorry and lost, and there’s no going back to the way it was before.

It was never easy, not really. It just never felt this hard before. 

Cas meets Dean in four steps and smoothes a hand across his scalp, down his neck and over his chest. He sits down in Dean’s lap, straddles him and kisses his way into Dean’s mouth. The weight of him, the softness of lips, Dean’s body reacts to it easily, like breathing. Hands on Cas’s waist, sliding up his back and around to do away with the crooked tie, opening his shirt down to his belly. Cas is submissive, letting Dean’s hands undress him, letting Dean’s mouth make a mess of his own, his neck, his collarbone, sucked from white to red under the crescent of Dean’s teeth. He’s never submissive, in the stricter sense, always impatient, always getting what he wants, getting his say in things. Dean always kind of liked that, even if he’s never dared say it where Cas could hear.

Not so long ago, in motel rooms in Tennessee and Nebraska, Wisconsin and Texas, Cas was jumpy, hungry and inexperienced. He was still groping his way through handjobs and biting kisses with too many teeth, irritated by the way his body reacted to heat and cold, the way he felt tired and hungry sometimes. He was stumbling toward humanity and Dean was feeling like a poor example of it, but it didn’t matter, because Cas was there anyway, no matter how bad it got. So Dean just closed his hand around Cas’s to show him how it was done, or held him to the mattress to teach him it didn’t have to hurt, it could feel good if you do it with somebody who cares about you. For a little while everything else – Heaven above them with Michael sitting on his throne, and Hell below them with Lucifer circling in the dark – just went away. It was simple and it was good, even when it wasn’t and every day still hurt.

Then everything got stupid and complicated again, and now Dean doesn’t entirely recognize Cas. The way his back arches, the way his hips flex, the sound he makes when Dean turns them over so Cas is on his back in Bobby’s worn spare blankets. Dean never taught Cas about the look on his face, the way he gets Dean by the belt-loops and drags him close, the way he gets his hands under Dean’s shirt to scratch down his back, across his chest. This is all new. This is all Castiel, made up of borrowed skin and left starving by all the things they can’t talk about, and Dean can’t shake the feeling this is the last he’s going to know any of it.

They undress one another quickly, shirts peeled off, pants tossed aside, belts and socks and shoes kicked over the side of the bed. Dean’s barely got the sense left to get his tongue out of Cas’s mouth long enough to slide off the bed and find his duffel. Finds the condoms and the bottle of lube he started carrying about five jobs ago, the first time they picked this up again. Back in bed and Cas lifts his knees unquestioningly when Dean moves to slide his briefs off. Gets Dean by the arm to sit up and kiss him again, slowly, no fire. He shakes his head no, the first time he’s ever said no, about this or anything else they’ve done. That takes Dean by surprise, and he swallows and licks his lips. 

“Cas.”

“No,” Cas says simply, and moves the condom packet from the bed by Dean’s thigh over to the night stand. “Okay?”

Dean decides not to fight it and nods. There’s a first time for everything, and he doesn’t want to think about anything else and sets about getting his own boxers off, distracted by the way Cas lays back to watch him. His knees are drawn wide, lazy and waiting, hips pressed out, dick wet at the head and sticking to his stomach. It’s so open and honest and ready, and it drives a spark right to the tip of Dean’s cock at the sight of it, puts that jealous warmth in his gut that makes it even harder to concentrate with Cas looking at him like this. Because this is his, and Cas is his, and everything about the look on Cas’s face is his, even if nobody else gets why. 

Cursory prep and Dean settles between Cas’s knees to fill him up in one full push. Their hips connect in a moan that rolls out of Cas’s chest and down Dean’s throat when he leans forward to kiss him, swallowing it. Cas’s legs around Dean’s hips, his nails scratching down Dean’s back and they’re off, that hard, deep way that Dean knows through practice always gets Cas riled up and loud. It’s better this time, better than ever before, because when Cas throws his head back and closes his eyes on a whine, Dean can feel him. Every inch of him, hot and wet and tight, the way he’s only ever been with Dean, and, goddamnit, that has to count for something.

He can’t bring himself to care about the thinness of the walls, or how well every creak and shudder the old house makes travels like buckshot in nearly every room. He should, and he should probably care that Bobby and Sam probably know all about this now, but he can’t. Instead Dean makes a fist in the sheets and another around Cas’s dick to stroke him off, trapped sticky between their bellies, and fucks him until Cas is saying Dean’s name and nothing else. Fucks him for everything he’s worth, everything they are and aren’t talking about these days, and everything Cas won’t say. Everything Dean wants to ask about, like why this feels like the end even though they haven’t even gotten anywhere yet. Even after Cas comes in a shudder and a buck and a warm stripe over Dean’s knuckles and wrist, Dean still fucks him. Cas still takes it, soft and wet in Dean’s hand, a mess of bruises and bitten lips. 

And then Dean’s coming and Cas takes that too, and holds on tight. No bursting light bulbs or electricity, just tensile strength and whispers. Cas’s mouth and his hands keeping Dean there, his arms keeping Dean close. 

There’s no time for a warm afterglow or a tender moment, or whatever it is normal people do in situations like this. The part of Dean that wants Cas to stay means to kiss him, to reach for the sheet and pull it over them, to sleep. He doesn’t get the chance, because once he pulls out Cas is up and out of the bed, to clean up and get dressed. It’s hard not to take it personally, left alone in tousled sheets while the angel pulls on his briefs and pants, sits down to button up his shirt. Rolling over onto his back, Dean sighs.

“You can’t even ask me,” he says, and tries not to sound as hurt as he feels. It’s not the time or the place, but fuck it, there it is. “Asshole.”

Cas gets to the button at his collar and turns to look at Dean. “You want me to ask you if you’ll stand with me always?” he asks, softly and without feeling. “If you’ll come back with me after this war, and promise yourself to no one else but me?”

The air feels hot again and Dean’s gut is tight, the way it gets when he wants something he knows he can’t have. Like Lisa and her simple apple-pie life, or some quiet time without monsters when Sam is safe and whole, or this shining new Heaven Cas must be building. He says nothing, and Cas swallows, and it’s a long hard moment before he speaks again.

“But if I do, Dean, I know you won’t come.”

“Well.” Dean’s face burns like he’s just been slapped. “You never fucking asked me, did you?”

“I want to, Dean. You have no idea how much.” Cas looks away, to some place on the other side of the wall. Dean can’t see it, these dark places he seems to find everywhere they go. “Maybe one day, after this is done. But not yet.”

“Fine,” Dean manages, and puts on a good face, because he’s got nothing else to lose. “I’m going to hold you to it, then. You win Heaven, Cas, then you have to take me there.”

Cas looks like he’s going to smile at that, then thinks better of it. “You would actually come with me?”

“Yeah,” Dean says like it’s nothing. “Could be like Disney Land, but less anti-Semitic. And after putting up with your sorry ass this entire time, I think I’m entitled.”

At that Cas nods and swallows. “Alright, I’ll take you.”

Cas lies and Dean believes it anyway. Before Dean falls asleep Cas will flit away, and in the morning he and Sam won’t talk about what was or wasn’t heard in the guest room the night before. But for now, as Cas leans in to kiss Dean like it will be his last, the belief is enough for both of them.


End file.
